September 17, 2015
Written by Maximus
Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer
Dear Reader,
The following writing is my
twelfth response to “Some Relations Between Culture, Ethics and Technology in
B.F. Skinner” by Melo, Castro & de Rose (2015). “Skinner points out that positive
control may generate delayed aversive control (Skinner, 1971/2002).” When the
listener experiences the speaker as sounding aversive, the speaker is producing
Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB), which directly affects the listener. It is the
listener who determines whether the speaker has NVB or Sound Verbal Behavior
(SVB), in which the speaker’s voice induces a positive affective experience in
the listener. The listener may learn not to object to the NVB speaker and avoid
more intense aversive control in the future, but the listener is already
aversively controlled by the NVB speaker. In effect, the listener learns to
postpone his or her SVB by letting the speaker have his or her NVB. For
instance, the student who finds his or her teacher boring and repetitive is not
in the position to correct the teacher’s dominating speaking behavior and sits
through the class obediently, but is not engaged. The student would rather hear
something interesting, which engages him or her, but to request SVB from the
teacher and to ask him or her to stop his or her NVB, would be inappropriate
and most likely leading to negative consequences. In my class, however,
students are rewarded for regulating their teacher.
“By producing precurrent
behaviors that allow self-government, the technology of teaching could enable
individuals to escape from positive contingencies whose long-term consequences
are aversive; the technology can, thus, produce freedom (Skinner, 1968,
1971/2002).” It should be noted here that Skinner describes the freedom he
found as he learned to “escape from positive contingencies whose long-term
consequences are aversive.” Due to his self-government, by following his own
train of thought, his private speech, he was able to continue with his own
version of SVB. He understood that instant gratification couldn’t produce
freedom. The long-term consequences of Skinner’s behaviorism were certainly
very positive for him personally, although this is not equally true for every other
behaviorist. His behaviorism explains why SVB works. Unlike most other
behaviorists, Skinner would have engaged in it, as he was already
engaging in it all the time, although he never called it SVB. The better we get at
discriminating aversive stimulation, the easier it is to avoid it and the less
of a need we have to escape from it. To the extent that avoidance behaviors
work optimally, we only approach events which are reinforcing to us. SVB has
guided my life in the same way that behaviorism guided Skinner’s life.
I am grateful to these authors who summarize Skinner’s work in such a way that I learn. “When
education promotes a vast and efficient repertoire, when it teaches students to
do tasks without constant teacher assistance, it produces behavior that is
“free” from people. When student’s behavior is shaped and maintained by the
natural consequences of their behavior rather than by approval, admiration or
attention, we then have an education for freedom.” However, the need to be
“free from people” is only there due to NVB. With SVB this need doesn’t even arise.
Education has not taught people to have SVB. To the contrary, it conditioned
them to have NVB.
“Natural consequences of
behavior” can only shape our behavior after the establishment of SVB, when our public
speech is guided by our private speech. At some point the behavioral cusp must
be attained, due to which our private speech is beginning to regulate our public speech. However,
because of NVB, we are led to consider our private speech as separate from our public
speech. The conflict between what we say to ourselves and to each other dissolves completely
during SVB. Thus SVB public speech is
the solution to our NVB private speech. Stated differently, NVB causes many
psychopathologies, which can only be remediated by SVB.
As Skinner stated “freedom is a
matter of contingencies of reinforcement.” His SVB repertoire “maximally
avoided aversive or punishing stimuli” and consistently gained “some kinds of
positive consequences”. It is not “the technology of teaching” which “has a
fundamental role in building behavioral repertoires that produce freedom”, but it
is SVB which creates and, most importantly, maintains the contingency that
produces and enhances freedom. Although, in this sense, we may be “free if we
visit a library and know how to read, if we buy a musical instrument and know
how to play it,” yet, we are not free to meet and talk with others and
to listen to them. For that, we need to be informed about the SVB/NVB
distinction. That is, “we are free to have a future if we have a repertoire
that allows us to examine our current cultural practices and so, identify
practices that potentially cause problems.” NVB causes us nothing but problems.
Behavioral technology is only ethical to the extent that it is talked about in a SVB manner.
If it is talked about in a NVB manner it is unethical. Any kind of aversive stimulation is unethical. Skinner refers to SVB in
Walden Two when Frazier, the behavioral engineer, says “the problems of
society called for something more, and that was where a behavioral technology
could make its contribution. Five other principles were needed:. . . Transmit the
culture effectively to new members through expert child care and a powerful education
technology. . . . Regard no practice as immutable. Change and be ready to change
again. Accept no eternal verity. Experiment. (p. 346).” SVB is an
interaction which is without any problems. All our problems are caused and
maintained by NVB. SVB is defined by each of the above five principles. I emphasize the last four “Regard no practice as immutable.
Change and be ready to change again. Accept no eternal verity. Experiment,” as
these describe exactly what is needed to have SVB.
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